Current Events

A justice of the peace in Helena, Mont., has fined a mother and
father $20 each for their daughter's chronic truancy and promised to
jail the couple one day for each of her future unexcused absences.
Wallace Jewell handed down the rulings in March against Leon and Kathy
Long, whose daughter attends Helena Middle School. Before the
sentencing, the girl had missed 63 days; more than one-third of the
absences were unexcused. Since then, according to court records, the
girl has not been truant.

A Cheater Exposed

A cheating scandal has forced Steinmetz High School in Chicago to
relinquish its 1995 Illinois Academic Decathlon title. The school was
stripped of the honor after students from last year's team reported
that their coach, English teacher Gerald Plecki, had given them
answers, which they then memorized. Plecki, who has resigned, admitted
cheating last year but denied helping his students this year. The title
was passed to Chicago's Whitney Young High School.

The GOP Agenda

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that a majority of
Americans are pleased with the general direction of the Republican-led
Congress--but disagree with GOP proposals relating to education and
children. About 41 percent of those polled--up from 31 percent in
January and 27 percent last October--said they approve of the actions
of Congress in general. But 79 percent said they oppose efforts by
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and other Republican lawmakers to
eliminate the U.S. Education Department; 58 percent said they disagree
with plans to replace the school-lunch program with a block grant; and
52 percent oppose abandoning the president's national service
program.

Required Reading

Beginning in the fall, middle and elementary school children in
poor-performing Dade County, Fla., schools will devote two hours each
day to reading. The school board decided to require the two-hour
reading block at 59 elementary and 12 middle schools where average
scores on the Stanford Achievement Test were 25 or less. (The average
nationwide is 50.) Middle schools will have to add an extra hour to the
school day, but the switch will not affect the elementary day. "Our
people aren't reading--that's one of the reasons for the two-hour
block,'' says Phyllis Cohen, a district official. "This permits
students to read on their own in order to develop the habit of reading
for pleasure.''

Illegal Tender

U.S. Secret Service agents recently stopped by a Delaware high
school to dissuade several students from pursuing careers as
counterfeiters. The students, it appears, had persuaded a teacher at
Caesar Rodney High School in Camden, Del., to use a digital computer
scanner to store the image of a $5 bill on a disk. They then began
duplicating the image on a home computer. After seeing one of the
counterfeit bills, a school official tipped off police, who called the
Secret Service, which has jurisdiction over fake money. Two agents
stopped by the school and rounded up five boys, who subsequently were
suspended. Aside from the lawless nature of the students' work, the
agents noted that the boys showed little flair for counterfeiting. "It
was extremely poor quality,'' one said. "Had you seen this note, you
would have known it was not real--unequivocally.''

Update

Tina Gordon, who quit her teaching job with the Dover, N.J., public
schools when the district refused to give her time off to run in the
Boston Marathon on April 17 [See "Briefs,'' April], has taken a new job
as a special education teacher in Hopatcong, N.J. Administrators in her
new school district not only gave her their support, Gordon said, but
also the day off to take part in the race.

Homeschoolers Seek Open-Door Policy

Parents who educate their children at home increasingly are trying
to force open the doors of local public schools to gain access to
services they cannot offer at home.
In recent months, they have created a stir in legislatures and
courtrooms in several states, demanding that their children be given
access to public school classes and other activities. In March, Gov.
Phil Batt of Idaho signed into law a "dual-enrollment policy'' that
requires public schools to accept students from home and private
schools for a portion of the day. And in Massachusetts, three state
judges since December have issued preliminary injunctions barring the
state interscholastic athletic association from preventing
homeschoolers from playing on public high school teams. But the news
hasn't been all good for homeschooling families. In late March, for
example, a federal magistrate ruled that students who are educated at
home have no guaranteed right to participate in extracurricular
activities offered by local public schools. The case had been filed by
the family of 14-year-old Jeremy McNatt, who had not been allowed to
play baseball in the Frazier, Pa., public schools. The boy had argued
that the district action violated his civil rights.
"This is something that is cropping up in a bunch of different ways in
a bunch of different states,'' says Scott Somerville, a staff lawyer
for the Home School Legal Defense Association in Purcellville, Va.
"It's alive.''
At the center of the disputes is the issue of fairness. Advocates of an
open-door policy believe that children should not be penalized because
their parents choose to educate them at home. "Do we believe they are
betraying something precious to the community and should be punished
for it?'' Somerville asks. "Or do we believe these are decent, caring
parents who aren't hurting anybody?''
Opponents argue, however, that such policies create a system of dual
standards. In many districts, for example, public school students must
follow academic and attendance rules to participate in sports. But
there is no way to determine whether homeschool students have followed
or met the same rules. To play interscholastic sports in the Frazier,
Pa., school district, students must maintain a C- average and attend
school regularly. "It's just not possible to treat [homeschoolers] the
same,'' says district superintendent Frederick Smeigh. Homeschool
students like Jeremy McNatt "have a choice,'' he says. "They can come
to regular school or homeschool. We can't equalize it.''
The new Idaho law is one of the most liberal of its kind in the nation.
It requires public schools to accommodate students who attend either
private or home schools. They may attend classes, participate in
extracurricular activities, or any combination of the two. That means a
homeschooler could take a chemistry or computer course from the public
school and the rest of his classes at home or at a private institution.
The student could also play on the basketball team or join the French
club.
Under the law, full-time public school students will be given
preference for academic courses, but ability will be the criterion in
extracurricular activities like sports. How school districts will be
reimbursed by the state for costs of compliance is yet to be
determined. And there are no estimates of how many students would be
affected because there is no agency that tracks students who are
schooled at home.
"It's going to be an administrative nightmare to begin with,'' says
Mike Friend, executive director of the Idaho Association of School
Administrators.
But there are questions of far greater import that remain to be
answered, Friend says. What happens, he asks, when a student transfers
from one public school to another and finds the chemistry labs full?
Would a homeschool student enrolled in one of the labs get booted out
to accommodate the transfer student? Or what about students who have
lost their academic eligibility to play sports? Could those students
switch to homeschooling and keep playing?
Previous attempts to pass such a policy had been stymied in the Idaho
legislature, but this year the measure passed easily. Observers
attribute the change, in part, to a more conservative political
climate. But another precipitating factor was a move by the Idaho High
School Activities Association to bar homeschoolers from participating
in extracurricular activities. Before the association had a chance to
adopt the policy, the legislature passed the law.
Observers note that the majority of disputes over these issues stem
from rules that exclude nonpublic students from public school
activities, especially sports. This has certainly been the case in
Massachusetts, where lawyer Robert Waldo has taken on the state
interscholastic athletic association four times in the past four months
on behalf of homeschooled students who were barred from athletics. In
all four cases, the courts ruled that the students had been
discriminated against and issued injunctions.
The issue has surfaced in Southern states, as well. In South Carolina,
for example, Rep. Michael Fair has introduced legislation that would
require districts to permit homeschoolers to take part in
interscholastic sports.
"As taxpayers,'' Fair says, "we all should have access to the public
schools.''

A Test Case

James Acton wanted to join his school's 7th grade football team. But
there was one glitch. His rural Oregon district, the Vernonia public
schools, required middle and high school athletes to consent to random
drug testing, and James' parents wouldn't sign the form. So instead of
playing football, James got an education about the federal court
system. The Actons filed suit against the district, arguing that random
drug testing violates the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against
unreasonable searches. In late March, with the Actons looking on,
Thomas Christ of the American Civil Liberties Union argued their case
before the U.S. Supreme Court. The district began the testing program
in 1989 after school officials linked an increase in classroom
disruption to what they believed was growing drug use among students.
District lawyer Timothy Volpert told the justices, "The school district
has established [that there is] a serious threat to its ability to
educate its students.'' In court papers, the district defended singling
out athletes with the argument that interscholastic sports is a
voluntary activity and that students give up some expectation of
privacy in order to participate. Christ told the justices that if
testing athletes is upheld, it might not be long before there is
"universal'' drug testing. "There should not be a different standard
for students than adults,'' he said. Last year, the U.S. Court of
Appeals agreed with the Actons and struck down the testing program. The
district appealed. James, now a 15-year-old sophomore at Vernonia High
School, is pictured above on the steps of the Supreme Court with his
father, Wayne, and his mother, Judy, left.

Parents' Rights

A Virginia-based organization that believes school officials and
others sometimes act against the wishes of parents is pushing an
amendment to state constitutions that would guarantee their rights.

The proposed amendment, drafted by Of The People, states that "the
right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their
children shall not be infringed.'' It would give legislatures the power
to enforce the measure.
The amendment's backers say it is needed to counter condom-distribution
programs and curricula in public schools that they believe hinder
parents' efforts to raise their children as they see fit. "When parents
try to get involved in their public schools, they find that their
rights are not being respected,'' says Greg Erken, the organization's
executive director.

Supporters say the amendment would codify two important U.S. Supreme
Court rulings dating from the 1920s that guarantee parents the right to
direct their children's upbringing. The cases are Meyer vs. Nebraska, a
1923 decision that upheld the right of parents to raise their children
free of unreasonable state interference, and Pierce vs. Society of
Sisters, a 1925 ruling that overturned an Oregon law requiring parents
to send their children to public school. In the latter decision, the
court said the law "unreasonably interfere[d] with the liberty of
parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of
children under their control.''

"The problem as we see it,'' Erken says, "is that although these
cases have never been overturned, they have become kind of a dead
letter among state judges and officials in the executive branches. This
amendment will revitalize this parental-rights doctrine.''

Of The People's written material argues that the amendment would
make public schools more accountable to parents "by giving them greater
oversight of academic standards and by helping ensure that values
taught at school don't conflict with values taught at home.'' In
practical terms, that would mean parents would have the right, among
other things, to bar their children from receiving condoms in schools,
Erken explains. He says the amendment also would help derail the recent
trend in family law that allows children to gain legal representation
separate from their parents.

Of The People was founded early last year by Jeffrey Bell, a
conservative author and parent who lives in Fairfax County, Va. So far,
the group has found sponsors for its proposed amendment in 24 states,
and the measure has been seriously debated or voted out of committee in
half a dozen.

Armen Martin, an aide to Sen. Rob Hurtt, who introduced the
amendment in California, acknowledges that it would not have much
effect if adopted. "But,'' he says, "we are trying to make a statement
that parents, and not government, should be responsible for raising
children.''

Some critics argue that the measure is not needed and even
potentially dangerous. Elliot Mincberg, legal director of People for
the American Way, a liberal civil-liberties group, believes the
amendment could create confusion about the validity of laws such as
those barring child abuse or requiring child vaccinations. "If what
they are really saying is that parents' rights can't be infringed, that
could have all sorts of consequences,'' Mincberg says. "Our view is
that the amendment is either unnecessary or would seriously conflict
with the current legal notion of parental rights and
responsibilities.''

But Erken asserts that the initiative would not take issue with
already established limits to parent rights, such as compulsory school
attendance, mandatory vaccination policies, or laws prohibiting child
labor or endangerment.

"Why is there such an innate distrust of parents that when we speak
of parental rights, we immediately hear of things that put parents in
such a poor light?'' he asks. "The vast majority of parents do a very
good job raising their children.''

Vying For Vouchers

A federal court has ruled that the Milwaukee school voucher program,
one of the first in the nation to give low-income students public money
to attend private schools, cannot be expanded to religious schools
without crossing the constitutional line between church and state.

Despite the ruling, Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson has continued to
push a proposal he made in January to expand the state-financed
Milwaukee program to religious schools and has even suggested
implementing it statewide. He argues that Wisconsin can sidestep the
church-state barrier by directing the aid to parents instead of
schools. The federal judge's decision, Thompson says, "will not deter
our efforts. If anything, it helps reaffirm that we are going in the
right direction with a voucher system that gives tuition money directly
to the parents, not the schools.''

Civil-liberties advocates maintain that the student vouchers
Thompson has proposed are no different from direct payments. The
governor, they point out, has suggested mailing tuition payments
directly to participating religious schools at parents' request--a move
Thompson says is necessary to prevent fraud.

"We are amazed by the lengths he is willing to go to to succeed in
giving tax dollars to religious schools,'' says Mordecai Lee, vice
chairman of the Wisconsin Coalition for Public Education, an
anti-voucher coalition that includes civil-liberties organizations and
leaders from several religious groups. "We are fighting this tooth and
nail.''

The Milwaukee choice program, begun in 1990, uses state money to
send nearly 880 low-income children to 12 private schools in the city.
The current law requires participating students to meet family-income
guidelines and stipulates that the state will pay their tuition only at
nonsectarian schools.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, lawyers for the Landmark
Legal Foundation, an advocacy group based in Kansas City, Mo., argued
that, by excluding religious schools from the program, the state was
infringing on the religious freedom of parents. Once the state allowed
public funds to be used for private school tuition, they argued, it
could not bar sectarian schools from the choice plan without denying
the plaintiffs--five low-income children and their parents--access to a
government benefit based on their religious beliefs.

Judge John Reynolds disagreed. He cited a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court
decision holding that a New York state program that paid the tuition of
low-income students attending religious schools had violated the U.S.
Constitution's prohibition of government establishment of religion.

Occupational Hazard

Teachers beware: Ditto sheets, those old-fashioned, aromatic tools
of the trade, may be hazardous to your health. That, at least, is the
conclusion of a study by the American Federation of Teachers, which, in
April, released a news advisory on the matter.

The AFT conducted its investigation of the purple-inked,
machine-printed papers after receiving calls from teachers complaining
of nausea and headaches when working with them. What the union found
was alarming.

According to Darryl Alexander, director of workplace health and
safety for the AFT, the fluid used in ditto machines often contains
high levels of methanol, a volatile and potentially harmful alcohol
that spreads quickly in the atmosphere. The methanol concentration in
the fluids tested ranged from 30 percent to 99 percent. In some
schools, Alexander says, the exposure levels may exceed workplace
standards set by the federal Occupational Safety and Health
Administration.

Exposure to high levels of methanol can lead to skin ailments,
blurred vision, or even more serious problems, such as blindness,
Alexander says. Teachers who regularly use ditto machines, he adds, may
be at risk while making printouts.

The AFT recommends that ditto machines be placed in areas with
proper ventilation and that teachers wait at least one day before
handling materials printed on them. It also proposes that schools
replace the machines with more sophisticated equipment.

Never-Ending Story

A New York state judge has added yet another chapter to the ongoing
saga of the Kiryas Joel school district, created in 1989 to serve
children with disabilities in a village of Orthodox Jews. In a March
ruling, the judge upheld a 1994 state law that gave new life to the
otherwise doomed district.

The law was the state legislature's response to a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling last June that struck down previous legislation establishing the
public school district for Kiryas Joel, a community of Satmar Hasidic
Jews about 50 miles northwest of New York City. The Supreme Court had
said that the 1989 law creating a district specifically for the village
was a form of "religious favoritism'' that violated the U.S.
Constitution. [See "Briefs,'' September 1994.]

The legislature then went back to the drawing board, adopting a
general law that allows municipalities to form school districts as long
as they meet certain criteria for size and tax base. Few in New York
state doubted that the law's main aim was to allow Kiryas Joel to keep
a public education program for its disabled children. Virtually all the
nondisabled children in the village attend private religious
schools.

Official at the New York State School Boards Association decided to
press the matter. They filed suit to overturn the law, which they
called a "sham.''

But in his March 8 ruling, Justice Lawrence Kahn of the state
supreme court in Albany, upheld the statute as religiously neutral. In
contrast to the 1989 law, which conferred a "special benefit'' on the
Hasidic village, the 1994 law "provides a religion-neutral mechanism
for all qualifying municipalities,'' the judge said. Even if Kiryas
Joel is the only village that now meets the criteria, he added, other
municipalities may eventually qualify. Coincidentally, Kahn was the
judge who struck down the law that created the district in 1989.

Abraham Weider, president of the Kiryas Joel school board, was
delighted with the ruling. "We are glad it was the same judge, which
should not leave any doubt as to the constitutionality of this law,''
he said.

Bill Pape of the school boards' association said the group is
considering whether to appeal.

Update

Tina Gordon, who quit her teaching job with the Dover, N.J., public
schools when the district refused to give her time off to run in the
Boston Marathon on April 17 [See "Briefs,'' April], has taken a new job
as a special education teacher in Hopatcong, N.J. Administrators in her
new school district not only gave her their support, Gordon said, but
also the day off.

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